All I Want
by K-yers
Summary: Brook Soso wasn't looking for a relationship, not exactly. But all that will change when she meets a girl with bright brown eyes who changes that. AU
1. Chapter 1

Brook Soso stood with the other volunteers in their blue and pink tie dye shirts, standing out in the church's parking lot. Brook ran her hand through her hair for what must've been the eleventh time; she was trying to grab the attention of the new guy, a tall and blond twenty year old named Jeremy who was standing by Ethan. So far, Brook hadn't been able to muster up the courage to talk to him yet.

"Now, what's the first rule when it comes to getting signatures?" Professor Barnes asked, her thin brown hair tied into a bun that was so loose it looked like it was about to fall off her head. Brook's theatre arts professor waved her arms at the cluster of college students so that they could echo the phrase that had been drilled into their brains over the last few weeks.

"Don't make an ass of yourself." Brook repeated the rule along with everyone else. Professor Barnes gave them a tight lipped smile for a moment before nodding.

The rule of not making an ass of yourself had been a joke on Ethan's part, back when the volunteers had first met and needed some ground rules. The cluster of college students had laughed at the rule and Professor Barnes had begrudgingly allowed that to be the first rule.

"Remember to use the buddy system, everyone!" Professor Barnes reminded everyone. "Drink lots of water throughout the day; we'll meet back here at eleven thirty for lunch. I'm going to get us all some Chick-Fil-La. Y'all don't have to pay for it." That, of course, was the selling point for a bunch of college students who survived on Ramen noodles and Pop Tarts.

This was it, Brook decided. As far as she knew, Jeremy hadn't paired up with anyone. Brook turned towards him and started to walk up to him, straightening as much as she could and trying to feign confidence. But almost as soon as she had turned to Jeremy, he had turned to Ethan. The two boys started walking away from Brook, apparently off to go get the signatures they needed.

"Perfect," Brook muttered to herself, feeling the disappoint bite her inside.

"Hey Brook!" Meadow said cheerfully, springing into frame right beside Brook. "You don't have a buddy yet? We can be each other's."

Brook smiled brightly at Meadow. Brook's fellow freshman wasn't a dreamy Jeremy, but she was still very nice. Meadow had played Annie Oakley in their high school's production of _Annie_ last year. Brook had only joined theatre that year to try and meet new people, and as a result she had been in the class with all of the freshmen. Meadow had discovered this and had befriended Brook. Maybe she had just taken pity on Brook for being saddled with the high school freshmen, but it didn't matter to Brook anymore.

"We should start on Truman Street," Brook said, pulling out her phone for the parade route. "That's where the block party is going on and that's where the most people will be." Meadow agreed and the two girls started walking away from the church parking lot and towards where the sidewalks were being lined with people ready for the Founder's Day parade to start.

Brook and Meadow began to walk in the road, rather than fight the crowds cramming for room on the sidewalks. As the girls walked through the neighborhood where the parade would be riding through, they would stop every now and then to gather signatures for their theatre program.

It was just Brook's luck that the year she joined the theatre program for her community college would also be the year that the college board wanted to cut back considerably on the theatre's budget. Thanks to them, Professor Barnes wasn't able to put on _Grease_ like she had wanted, and the old professor was still unsure as to what play they were actually going to do, if they were able to do any of it. So she had asked for volunteers to gather signatures, so that the board would see that people wanted the theatre program to stay alive.

Brook had just finished explaining this to a middle aged mother who had two kids who looked to be in elementary school. The mom blinked at Brook when she finally finished, and for a moment Brook was worried that she had spoken too fast.

"Hand over the clipboard," The mom finally said. Brook flashed a bright smile at her and handed the clipboard to her. The mom violently scrawled a signature onto the form and handed the clipboard back. "Good luck." She said, stretching her closed lips into a line. Brook figured that this must've been a sort of half smile and she flashed another smile at the mother before going on her way to hunt down more signatures.

Meadow was talking to a group of pimply teenaged boys who looked to be in high school. The boy at the front of the group wasn't doing a good job of glancing at Meadow's breasts every few seconds, but Meadow was either ignoring this or she just didn't notice it at all. Brook recognized the one near the back to be Baxter Bayley; she had had him in her Spanish One class sophomore year. He had to be a senior this year.

Brook figured that Meadow would be fine on her own for a few minutes. There were literally hundreds of people here whose signatures were needed. So Brook turned away from her friend and went down a tad before stopping beside an elderly couple who were already sitting in lawn chairs on the street's curb.

"Hi there!" Brook started. "My name's Brook Soso and I'm representing my community college's theatre program. We need signatures to help stop the budget cuts from taking away our performance this year."

The old lady signed immediately, the old man hadn't really been paying attention, but his wife signed the form for him anyway. As Brook thanked them and walked away, she heard the old lady say, "Rupert, honestly it wouldn't kill you to listen!"

Brook managed to get a dozen more signatures before Meadow finally caught up. They were both doing rather well; Brook had a feeling that it was just because these people wanted them out of their faces, but it didn't matter. Especially since they were both already on their second form.

"This is going great, Brook!" Meadow exclaimed, returning to Brook's side after getting a couple of signatures from a couple with two teenaged daughters. "We just might be able to perform _Grease_ this year after all!"

"Who d'you think you'll be cast as if we get it up and running?" Brook asked.

Meadow pretended to think about it for a split second. "Well, I'd just _love_ to play Sandy, of course. But since I'm a freshmen they'll probably give that role to an older student."

Brook had to admit that Meadow was the perfect girl to play Sandy: she had the bright blond hair that was almost always in a high ponytail, she was always so cheerful and optimistic. If Meadow didn't get the role, she'd probably get to be the understudy. Brook, figured she could play Jan, or maybe Marty.

The two girls finally made it to Truman Street, where the entire street had been turned into a block party. The local businesses had their doors open with signs that read _Not a Public Restroom!_ and _Parade Discounts!_ There were food vendors with grills and smokers, cooking ribs, hot dogs, hamburgers. The smells of the block party made Brook's mouth water, but she forced herself to remember that Professor Barnes would be buying everyone Chick-Fil-La for lunch.

Alcohol was practically flowing from every direction. There were more drunk people here than on the curb of the parade route; this area was more for adults than the child friendly area before.

"I'll get this group here," Meadow announced, pointing at a group of men and women outside one of the bar patios who looked like they belonged in a biker gang. Brook nodded as Meadow went to ask for their signatures. Once her friend was gone, Brook looked around for someone to sign her own form.

Brook's eyes landed on a group of black girls who were walking right towards her. Two of the girls were on the heavier side, and Brook got the feeling that they could probably beat her up if they had wanted to. The other three were shorter, two of those being of a lighter build. And despite the fact that they all looked to be Brook's own age, they were all holding red Solo cups that must've been carrying alcohol.

Using her bright smile, Brook walked right up to the girls, clipboard in hand.

"Hi there!" Brook started the rehearsed greeting. "My name is Brook Soso and I'm-"

"Soso?" One of the bigger girls interrupted her. Brook blinked as the older girl snorted with brief laughter.

The other bigger girl hit the first's arm with the back of her hand. "Man, shut _up._ You were sayin', uh, _Soso_?"

Brook tried to ignore the fact that they were finding her last name so amusing. The small one in front, with the super short hair, was watching Brook with big brown eyes that somehow had slight laugh lines around the corner of her eyes. She was looking at Brook with a quiet kind of intensity, and it was starting to make Brook blush.

"Well, as I was saying," Brook said, giving the girl who interrupted her. The taller girl gave Brook a narrowed eyed gaze in response. "I'm representing my community college's theatre program. We need signatures to help stop the budget cuts from taking away our performance this year."

All five girls stared at Brook for a moment and Brook was momentarily worried that they would end up laughing in her face. She had heard horror stories from the upperclassmen in theatre of people of people either laughing at them for trying to help the theatre program. One of the older girls had even told her that once she had had food thrown at her.

The nice one, however, smiled at Brook and reached out for her clipboard. Brook smiled broadly again and handed it over, along with her pen. The girl scribbled her name before handing it over to the one who had laughed before. Brook watched as all five girls ended up signing the form, with the small one in front hesitated before signing her name. When the last one (the thin girl who looked lean and muscular) finished, she handed it back to Brook.

"Thank you so much!" Brook said, flashing her smile again. Two of them smacked their lips together to make a dismissive noise, the one with the interesting hair just nodded and shrugged, but the nice one and the small one both smiled at Brook. The girls started to walk around Brook, moving on to enjoy the block party. The small one held Brook's gaze as she walked away, and before she turned away, Brook saw the girl wink.

Brook felt her face heat up considerably, though sh wasn't particularly sure why. As soon as she was sure the group of girls were gone, Brook checked the form again to see their names, even though there wasn't a need to.

For a moment, Brook thought that the small girl had made up a name, seeing that what she had written looked remarkably like a curse word. But then Brook blinked at the phone number written ever so clearly right next to her name.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: So I've lived in England for a year, traveled around to Scotland and Italy, moved back home to Florida, and basically took a year off writing because depression is awful but I've always wanted to come back to this story and people keep asking me to so here I am.**

 **Sorry it's been forever. But thank you for not giving up on this story when I wanted to give up on writing forever.**

* * *

Had she meant to write down her number? She didn't have to. Maybe she thought you were supposed to put your number down. That had to be it, Brook decided.

Brook's bedroom was bright. The walls, once bare with a few questionable stains near the ceiling, were covered with posters of TV shows and celebrities. Her roommate thought that having a bunch of eyes watching her all the time was creepy, but Brook couldn't help but ignore her. Her roommate didn't come in here anyway.

The bedsheets were bright yellow and the covers were a square pattern of blue and white. A couple of stuffed animals littered the room, one over on the bed and the other on top of the shelf, where stacks of magazines and books lived. Brook's corkboard was covered with pictures of her high school friends and her family and random sticky notes reminding her of test dates and when her essays were due.

Brook had taken a picture of the phone number before turning in the forms to Professor Barnes. Meadow had asked why, but even Brook couldn't explain it. Meadow had just laughed and said that it must've been a hot guy for Brook to save his number.

Brook had bit her tongue and didn't say how it had been a girl.

A rather cute girl at that. Brook had always thought girls were really, _really_ pretty. More than a couple of times, she had imagined kissing girls. When Katy Perry's _I Kissed a Girl_ came out, Brook had secretly imagined herself singing the song and being completely honest about it. Cherry chapstick sounded nice.

But Brook had never acted on it. Her mom would've flipped her lid. Sarah Soso thought that anything that was out of the norm was bad. She didn't believe in a heaven or hell, but she sure as hell didn't believe in anything that wasn't straight or gay. And Brook liked boys, she definitely liked boys.

And that's how Brook Soso ended up sitting in her room on a Sunday afternoon, staring at the picture on her phone of that girl's number.

"I'm being silly," Brook said to herself finally. "It's just a girl's number. You don't have to call it. She probably didn't think you'd actually call her. If you do, she'll just think you're weird." Brook deleted the picture and nodded to herself. "It's not like you'll see her ever again."

Brook was proven wrong the very next day.

Western Humanities was a class that Brook had been looking forward too. Just one humanities class was required for a bachelor's, but Brook was planning to take Eastern Humanities next semester. She grabbed the seat right next to the door and in front of the board, ready to start the class. So far, she was the only one in the front row.

More students entered, in the broad fashion of community college. There was one girl who looked to be right out of high school, like Brook, who had on heels and had clearly put in the time to look good today. And then there was a guy who looked to be a couple of years older, wearing sweatpants and a Red Sox hoodie. Brook blinked at the large man bun he had and stifled her giggle as he passed and got a seat near the front.

And then she walked in.

Brook couldn't help but stare as she and the girl met eyes. The girl clearly wasn't expecting to see Brook there either, because she stumbled over he own feet and blinked rapidly at Brook.

"Uh, hey," She said awkwardly. She was standing in front of the door and Brook's desk. "Girl from the block party, right? I'm not crazy?"

Brook shook her head. "I got your signature."

"Oh right. Saving the whales, right?"

"Saving the theatre program."

"Shit."

"Close enough, though."

That made her give a small snort of laughter. Brook felt her stomach tighten as the girl bit her bottom lip out of nervousness. When she looked back to Brook, Brook hoped desperately that she wasn't blushing.

"Sorry if I was weird when we met." She said. "I was already three rum and Cokes, and a couple of tequila shots in."

Brook blinked. "It was like ten in the morning."

A slow half smile dragged across the girl's face, lifting up one corner of her mouth and causing her eyes to wrinkle from the smile. "Nice to know that you remembered that much about our meetup."

Another guy came into the room and just about ran over the smaller girl in front of him. Brook inhaled sharply as he grumpily side stepped her and the girl straighten herself out. They made eye contact for a brief moment before the girl pointed to the seat right next to Brook.

"Is that seat taken?" She asked.

Brook recovered in time to say, "Oh no. You can sit here."

The girl tossed her backpack over the long desk and walked around to get to the seat. When she plopped down into the chair, Brook caught a whiff of a cologne that made her clench her hands. The girl turned to Brook in the seat and stuck out a hand, which Brook took to shake.

"Name's Poussey Washington," She said with that half smile again.

"Brook Soso," Brook replied, finding herself smiling at Poussey. The girl with a name let go of Brook's hand, but let her fingertips drag across Brook's palm, an action that sent a rush of electricity up Brook's arm.

By the time the professor actually showed up to start teaching, Brook was already sweating slightly.


End file.
